NCAA Football Star Hit With Child Porn and 'Revenge Porn' Charges After Ex's Disturbing Allegations
Talented, but possibly troubled, University of Nebraska freshman running back Maurice Washington is facing criminal charges after an ex-girlfriend claimed that he used a text message to send her a video that depicted the young woman allegedly being sexually assaulted by two young males in 2016, according to ESPN.
Washington is being charged with two crimes.
The first charge is a felony possession of child pornography. The other charge is a misdemeanor of “posting of a photograph or recording of a sexual nature without consent,” according to ESPN, which cited supervisor of the sexual assault unit in the Santa Clara County District Attorney’s Office, Clarissa Hamilton.
As San Jose, California-based KNTV reported, the second charge typically falls under the definition of “revenge porn.”
The child pornography charge stems from the video of the alleged high school sex assault.
Chicago News Nebraska RB Maurice Washington faces charges tied to assault video https://t.co/yjX0y33ULE pic.twitter.com/TjSu9Ulo6B
— Chicago NewsChannel (@Chicago_NC) February 12, 2019
The victim, identified only as “Taylor” in a KNTV report, was 15 at the time of the incident. She is 18 now, but had dated Washington when they were both freshmen at The King’s Academy High School in Sunnyvale, California, KNTV reported.
Here is KNTV’s extended coverage of the scandal. The woman spoke on camera for the report, but asked that her last name not be used.
Obviously, a sexual assault by two classmates would be a horrific experience that the young woman would want no memory of.
However, according to prosecutors, it was brought back up in the most horrific of ways after she tried to congratulate Washington on Instagram for earning a Division 1 scholarship with Nebraska.
Washington’s alleged response to the woman’s congratulations?
He made sexual advances, according to ESPN. When she said she was not interested, he sent the video, ESPN reported.
“Remember this hoe?” he allegedly texted with the video on March 2, 2018.
The woman said the response came as a shock.
“I tried so hard to forget it, and then to have someone just throw it back in my face like that and taunt me with it was just so evil,” Taylor told KNTV.
“Maybe that’s the wrong word to use, but I felt like it was evil, like why would you ever want somebody to feel that pain that I felt that day?”
To be clear, as ESPN notes, Washington was neither a participant in the sexually explicit video nor was he the one to film it.
One of the males in the video was arrested in 2016 and placed on probation after sharing it with his classmates.
“I was just like, ‘Oh my God, everyone thinks I made a sex tape, everyone thinks that I’m some freak who wanted to have sex on video camera and send it to my school,’” the woman said, according to KNTV. “I’m 15 years old. How could you believe that?”
The woman told KNTV that the two male students forced her into the acts after claiming they were taking her to a fast food restaurant. She said they recorded the incident without her knowledge.
“They’re driving this way, and I’m like, ‘Jack in the Box is back that way,’” Taylor told the station. “And I said that probably 30 times to them, and eventually they pulled over at this park, with houses on the left hand side, and they’re like, ‘We’re going to have a threesome.’
“That’s when they started to rape me, and while I was being raped, they took a video that I had no idea about.”
KNTV reported that the girl and both boys in the video had to leave The King’s Academy after the video circulated:
“According to a Santa Clara County Sheriff’s Department search warrant obtained by NBC Bay Area, school administrators at The King’s Academy soon learned of the video and told anyone who had a copy of the video to delete it. Taylor said she and the two classmates in the video were forced to leave the school. Washington, according to the search warrant, still had a copy of the video.”
The woman said she was not willing to press charges on a sexual assault at the time because she felt so ashamed.
“I was depressed, I started using drugs and alcohol, my grades plummeted, I stopped playing softball,” she told the station. “I wasn’t happy anymore.”
And, according to prosecutors, it was all dredged back up by Washington after the woman made the harmless gesture of congratulating him.
According to a statement from Washington’s attorney obtained by KNTV, John C. Ball, Washington is fully cooperating with the proper authorities.
“This is a situation involving an inappropriate cell phone video. The allegations are that Mr. Washington sent that video to his high school girlfriend. Mr. Washington did not make the video, nor does he appear in the video. The incident is alleged to have taken place in California, several years ago. Mr. Washington will continue to be fully cooperative with the authorities in this situation. We are in contact with those authorities, and are in the process of making arrangements to move forward and resolve this matter. Mr. Washington has confidence in our justice system, and knows that he can rely on the fundamental constitutional rights of due process and the presumption of innocence.”
In a separate statement, Ball also defended Washington from the emerging narrative.
“The narrative put forth today is that Mr. Washington used a video as a weapon to re-victimize his former high school girlfriend. That is not true. Without a doubt, Mr. Washington had absolutely nothing to do with that sexual assault. The communications between these two young people are yet to be fully determined, and there are additional facts and circumstances that give context and perspective to this situation.”
The University of Nebraska also issued a statement through an athletic department spokesperson.
“Last fall we were contacted by the Nebraska Attorney General’s office and the University of Nebraska-Lincoln police department and made aware that officials in California were interested in interviewing Maurice Washington about a prior incident. Details were not shared and there was no additional follow up with the Nebraska Athletic Department. Recently, we were made aware that charges may be filed against Maurice in California. We have not had a chance to review the charges, and will continue to monitor this ongoing legal process.”
Washington showed promise as a true freshman, amassing 455 rushing yards on just 77 carries, as well as 221 receiving yards on 24 receptions while playing behind entrenched senior starter Devine Ozigbo. Washington also chipped in four total touchdowns last year. Washington was a top-10 prospect for the 2018 running back class according to 247 Sports. Many had him penciled in to be the starting running back for Nebraska next year.
That is obviously in serious jeopardy now.
Washington’s issues are just the latest in a rough period for Nebraska Cornhusker football. Dealing with the potential fallout from the charges levied against a potential superstar player seems far more significant than Oregon State allegedly tampering with any of their players.
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